This will be a fairly brief post.
I know, I know. Promises, promises!

I really just wanted to let you know that over the next few months, things will be a little different around here. This is the result of two different but exciting happenings.

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Firstly, next week I’m heading away to the UK for about 6 weeks. Most of this time will be spent in Cambridge working on the manuscript of my commentary on 1 & 2 Thessalonians (for the new Hodder Bible Commentary series).

I am someone who loves writing. But I am also someone who finds it difficult to carve out extended and uninterrupted periods of time to focus on my writing. So, going away on a dedicated writing sabbatical works well for me. And, look, if someone has to go to Cambridge on a writing retreat then I guess I will volunteer as tribute.

Getting into the Thessalonians zone for a month will require me to restrain the impulse to get into a bunch of different zones at the same time. And so, a heads up: I don’t expect to be publishing any of my usual posts on here while I’m away.

But never fear… I’m not abandoning you entirely!

You see, the other exciting happening is that, in a few months time, my new book, Single Ever After launches. Bring on September 1^st!

Now, any old person can head across to the book’s webpage, view the table of contents, read the endorsements and even download the introduction and first chapter.

But not just any old person can get a glimpse into my motivations and hopes for each chapter, as well as a couple of behind-the-scenes bonuses along the way.

That’s reserved just for you guys 😊

Starting in July, I’ll be kicking off a weekly companion series titled, Single Ever After: Chapter by Chapter. Each post will contain a brief excerpt from that chapter and some of my thoughts about its significance.

My hope is that this companion series will give you a glimpse into why I wrote Single Ever After and how I’m praying God might choose to use it to bear fruit for his kingdom amongst singles, marrieds and pastors alike. And so, I’d love it if you might:

• Read the series

• Engage with the series (there will be a few suggestions of how you can do that at the end of each post)

• Share the series with others

Ok folks. I’ll leave it there.

After all, I need to concentrate on what I should pack for 6 weeks of UK “summer” 😉

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Incoherent

In that last post we saw how, in a recent podcast episode, Rigney correlates empathy (i.e., what he defines as emotional enmeshment, being swept away by one’s feelings/passions without the tether of reason or truth) as uniquely and destructively feminine in orientation.

But here is something else he said in that same podcast episode:

“The additional [argument] is that good men, particularly good men… [who] want to be sensitive and kind and caring for women as the Bible tells them to… good men then find it really difficult to deal with female distress, female agitation. And therefore it agitates their own agitation which gets covered over by their empathy. They start to share that agitation and they want to do anything they can to make it go away. This is why churches that are trying to appease or accommodate sensitive women, agitated women, eventually go woke or go liberal as well. Even the men go along with it because it is hard to resist that kind of emotional agitation.” Time Stamp

Well, this is a little awkward.

It turns out that wrestling with empathetic feelings towards another person isn’t primarily female-coded after all. According to Rigney, not only do men feel empathy but their innate male reasonableness can be overwhelmed by their innate male empathy. They too struggle with the hurt, agitation, anxiety, distress of others and “want to do anything they can to make it go away”.

Errr. This feels a little contradictory.

But then… note that what is an inherently harmful liability in women is seen by Rigney to be characteristic of “good men, particularly good men”. In other words, what makes a woman bad and destructive is what identifies a man as good and caring. Her depth of empathy is a curse while his is evidence of his “goodness”. So it is that the sensitive but misguided empathetic “good” man is left vulnerable to being exploited and manipulated by Medusa. He says more about this in Chapter 5 of The Sin of Empathy:

In fact, we might state the challenge in this way. Faithful men know how to resist unfaithful men. Good shepherds are willing to fight wolves. But even faithful men struggle to resist unfaithful women. She-wolves, especially ones who present themselves as victims, give faithful men fits because of the unavoidable asymmetries in play. What’s more, ungodly women are often willing to exploit these asymmetries in order to steer entire communities. And it’s not just the she-wolves who cause trouble—its also the compromised (female) sheep, the ones who Paul calls “weak women,” captured by false teachers due to their emotional instability, immaturity and sin (2 Tim. 3:6-7)

The Sin of Empathy, Kindle Edition pg.115

Those poor faithful men. There they are ready and eager to fight the ferocious wolves prowling around God’s people. But add a she-wolf into the mix—or even a compromised female sheep—and their goodness makes them powerless to resist her manipulation or instability.

According to Joe Rigney, women get swept away by their empathy because they lack the ability to tether themselves to reason and truth. But when men get swept away by their empathy, the blame does not lie with the same in themselves. No. The blame lays with manipulative, exploitative, unfaithful, troublesome women.

This line of argumentation is not only deeply offensive to women (and men), but it undermines his broader argument that the real issue with empathy as it is deployed today is that it is primarily female-coded and reason-resistant.

Rigney’s argument is internally incoherent.
But it is also theologically incoherent.

We’ve seen (here and here) that he contends feelings and passions sweep women away from reason, rationality and discernment. This is why they need male reason and rationality to protect them and to guard society from their empathetic folly. In other words, Rigney argues that female feelings are compromised and corrupted while male rationality is reliable and privileged.

Such a conclusion utterly fails to account for the noetic effects of sin. The Bible teaches us that sin has corrupted the mind and its reason just as equally as it has corrupted the heart and its feelings. Indeed, according to Romans 1:21 and 28, the futility of our thinking and the foolishness of our hearts are irretrievably connected.

All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. And what is sin if it is not suppression of the truth? The fact of the matter is that the reasoning of our minds is no more inherently trustworthy than the feelings of our hearts. Put another way, we are no more inclined to think rightly than we are to feel rightly.

And so, even if we were to agree with Rigney’s dichotomy of male-coded reason and female-coded emotions (and we shouldn’t… keep reading), God’s word rejects the premise that men are more inherently reliable in the exercise of their reason than women are in the exercise of their feelings.

Tragically, sin has corrupted the hearts and minds of men and women alike.

Wonderfully, the Spirit renews the hearts and minds of men and women alike. Which brings me to my next point…

Inaccurate

According to Rigney, reason and rationality are in some way more indigenous to men than women, while feelings and emotions are in some way more indigenous to women than men. So pervasive is this dichotomy that Rigney uses it to make broad assertions about (what he sees to be) glaring differences between male and female constitution and character.

Yet, as with all patriarchal ideologues, he is so reliant on emphasising the distinctions between men and women that you’d be forgiven for thinking that he’s talking about two different species of creatures altogether. Put another way, Rigney is so eager to refute any suggestion that men and women are interchangeable (by the way, they are not), that he is myopically fixated on how men and women are different to one another. In so doing he not only fails to appreciate, celebrate and signify the aspects of humanity which are foundationally the same for men and women alike, but he also feels free to make stuff up about how men and women are “naturally” different in order to bolster his agenda. Namely, women are the kind of humans who get carried away by their emotions while men are the kind of humans who are able to be reasonable and rational in the face of emotions.

But here’s what the Bible says.

Both men and women have been created with the gift and capacity to think. To reason. To rationalise. To know. Indeed, Eve ate the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil partly because “she saw it was… desirable for gaining wisdom” (Genesis 3:6).

Likewise, both men and women have been created with the capacity to feel. To emote. To yearn. To hurt. We only need to read the Psalms of David to know that men are capable of feeling just as deeply as women.

Before God made Eve in any way distinct from Adam, he made her from the very same stuff as him. Put another way, men and women are both human. And to be human is (amongst many other things) to be creatures who both think rationally and feel deeply. This is part and parcel of what it means to have been made in the image of God.

Yes, there are good and essential differences between men and women. And yes, some of those differences involve general distinctions in how we engage our thinking and express our feelings. But a man is not “the thinking kind of human”. A woman is not “the feeling kind of human”.

No. Women were created to exercise reason just as much as men were. Men were created to feel things just as deeply as women were. Tragically, sin has corrupted women’s minds just as much as it has corrupted the male heart. And vice versa.

But gloriously, God’s Spirit has come to dwell within both his sons and daughters:

Contrary to Rigney’s argument, female disciples of Christ are equally capable in following God’s decrees and keeping his laws. They too are able to exercise their rational knowledge of who he is and how he would have them live according to his truth.

Why? Because female members of the family of God have been given the same new heart and the same new spirit as their male counterparts. Men and women are both co-heirs with Christ. The same indwelling Spirit has come as the helper to both of them. They are equally members of the body of Christ. Equally called to one-another ministry in the church. Equally called to build up the household of God.

Ultimately, Rigney’s contention that male Christians have been enabled to exercise reason and hold to truth more innately, more capably or more readily than women is inaccurate.

By which I mean it is unbiblical.
By which I mean, it is unChristian.

But we’ve got one more “in” to go…

Inconsistent

Joe Rigney claims to be a complementarian by theological conviction and association. He serves as a council member for the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood. According to CBMW’s website, its council members:

“…agree with the mission and vision of CBMW, including the Danvers Statement and the Nashville Statement, as well as contribute to the ministry by speaking, writing, and/or giving leadership support to the organization.”

And yet, Joe Rigney’s claims, contentions and conclusions about men and women in The Sin of Empathy (and other related resources) do 👏 not 👏 represent 👏 the 👏 complementarian 👏 theology 👏 of 👏 the 👏 Danvers 👏 Statement. 👏

As a Danvers Complementarian, this is deeply concerning to me. Let me explain.

To be frank, it is unclear to me whether Rigney thinks women are inherently untethered from reason, swept away by empathy, and willing to compromise any truth or cross any boundaries so long as they get to “kiss the boo-boo” better is because:

1. He thinks this is part and parcel of how God designed women in the garden…
   
   or because
   

2. He thinks this is a unique consequence of sin upon women’s character, constitution and conduct.

I suspect the reason I’m unclear about Rigney’s thinking on this is because Rigney is unclear about his thinking on it. Or at the very least, he has been unclear in the communication of his thinking on it.

His language of how women are “wired”, what God has “built into” them and what is “natural” would seem to lean towards option 1. But on what possible biblical or theological basis would he maintain that God’s good and perfect design for women included inbuilt flaws such that, even though Eve was made quite literally from the same stuff as Adam, she was designed to be incapable of holding onto reason and truth like Adam and was bound to become an inherent liability when her compassion ran up against God-ordained boundaries? Option 1 is theological nonsense.

But Option 2 is also theological nonsense. Yes, the curse of the Fall plays out in some distinct ways for men and women. But those distinct ways are spelt out in Genesis 3. They have nothing to do with women being enslaved to their empathy and incapable of exercising reason. Nor do they have anything to do with the male sex (as a whole) being inert victims of the manipulation and instability of the female sex (as a whole). We’ve also already seen that sin has corrupted both the minds and hearts of both men and women alike. The fallen male sex is no less fallible when it comes to reasoning and commitment to truth than the fallen female sex is. The fallen female sex is no more enslaved to their emotions and feelings than the fallen male sex is.

Whatever his reasoning is, Rigney’s conclusions are utterly inconsistent with his claimed complementarian convictions. The theological affirmations of the Danvers Statement are clear that any distinctions in sexed personhood, and so also relational roles between men and women, arose from God’s good ordained order (in which Adam was the firstborn and Eve his fitting helper) and not as a postlapsarian reality. Put another way, loving male headship in the home and church and, what Danvers calls, women’s “intelligent” submission in those contexts (Sidenote: it’s hard to be intelligent if you can’t hold onto reason, huh?) is based on God’s perfect created order between men and women… not on some inherent flaw he built into women but not men, nor on some selective distortion of women’s ability to hold to reason as a result of sin

Joe Rigney’s argument is inconsistent with the complementarian theological position he claims as his own and officially represents.

I’ve previously expressed concern about how Rigney’s insistent conflation of complementarianism with patriarchy is at odds with the theological affirmations of the Danvers’ Statement. I’ve asked CBMW’s leadership for clarification on that count, but unfortunately to no avail. Ultimately, I was left with little choice but to conclude that:

CBMW’s affiliation with certain people and promotion of certain resources that go well beyond Danvers, means it is no longer clear to me that Danvers remains the org’s position in actuality…

That was bad enough.

However, the latent public support by some complementarian commentators for the misogynistically-reliant and theologically-compromised argument laid out in The Sin on Empathy alongside (what from my perspective has been) silence from CMBW leaders and governors after one of their own Council members has publicly contradicted the very theological tenets their organisation not only holds but gate-keeps… well, suffice to say I find it absolutely extraordinary. But sadly, no longer surprising.

I’ve been concerned about the slow but steady hijacking of authentic complementarianism by patriarchy (or what is now more palatably being referred to as “natural complementarianism”) within CBMW for some years now. Many in their circles have pegged (and dismissed) me as an embittered functional egalitarian. Many in my own circles have pegged (and ignored) me as paranoid and alarmist.

But so long as these false theological claims about women (and men), made by a member of their own Council goes uncontested by CBMW, well, I stand vindicated.

Trust me though. This kind of vindication is a bitter pill I’d rather not have to swallow.

Sadly I have no faith that my raising this (again) will gain much traction amongst the CBMW decision-makers. After all, I’m easily dismissed as a ‘thin complementar[ian] that softens evangelical institution for progressive steerage’. Perhaps those with some degree of personal relationship and trust with CBMW Board members (NB. a different group to their Council members) might have more success.

To bring us back on track and round this discussion off, Joe Rigney’s argument in The Sin of Empathy is misogynistic, internally and theologically incoherent, deeply unChristian and not consistent with his self-asserted complementarian theological convictions.

What a missed opportunity that book is.

There are real problems with the adoption of secular commitments within the church. There are real issues with the forgoing of theological truth for progressive ideology. There are real concerns with how many Christians have come to venerate victimhood at the expense of calling people to know and follow the one who was crucified as a truly innocent victim for their sake.

But Rigney’s poor theology, obvious tribalism, stalwart commitment to his own agenda and misogynistic bias has resulted a deeply flawed book that fails to diagnose the real issue at stake—our universal sinfulness—and its real solution—the saviour God who empathetically entered into our suffering, empathetically took on our sin and empathetically bore our shame so that, underserving though we are, we might participate in his grace and glory.

Bring biblical and theological truth to blow gently on the fuse of Joe Rigney’s empathy bomb and 💨… out it goes. Just like that.

Of course, there was the (predictable) trolling from anonymous male accounts on Twitter/X. My approach there was simple. Ignore. Block. Carry on with my life.

But there were also those who readily dismissed my review, in toto, for one of two reasons:

1. They decided it was the “most pedantic review they had ever read”, “one of the most bizarre reviews of a book I’ve ever read” and full of nothing more than “feigned confusion over semantic differences”. This meant they felt fully justified in conveniently ignoring all aspects of my critique of Rigney’s argument.

2. They decided that I’m “a feminist” who is bent on steering the church away from orthodoxy and towards progressive ideology. This also meant they felt fully justified in conveniently ignoring all aspects of my critique of Rigney’s argument.

In this follow up piece I plan to demonstrate:

1. Why it is very important that we not only pay careful attention to the words that people use, but to also take people at the words they choose to use.

2. That I am not “a feminist”. But that Joe Rigney is a misogynist. Yes. I said it. (Edit: Please refer to this footnote1 to understand what I mean—and don’t mean—by that)

Before I continue, let me say that if you don’t know who Joe Rigney is, why he is no fan of empathy or why I would care enough about either of those two things to write a 5000-word review, well, you have two options:

1. Continue living your life in blissful ignorance… in which case, more power to you, my friend! Long may you prosper.

2. Continue reading on, but be aware that you’ll be best served by having some degree of familiarity with my review as you do so.

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In a nutshell, Rigney argues that empathy is the greatest threat to Christian faithfulness today. He isn’t particularly concerned with what that word actually means, but rather what he uses it to mean—namely, the sense in which people get swept away by their passions, emotions and feelings for the hurting, such that they abandon reason, truth, justice and love and instead jump (both) feet first into the pit of despair alongside them.

In my review, I contended that Rigney’s argument is terminologically and definitionally incoherent. I also concluded that it fails to establish itself theologically and biblically. Contrary to claims that my pesky expectation that authors employ words meaningfully and consistently (so as to mount a coherent argument) resulted in me missing Rigney’s point, readers of my review will be aware I concluded that there is an issue to be addressed, but that Rigney:

… misdiagnoses the true source of the conflicted and conflictual situation the church finds herself in today. The problem is not that (some) Christians have joined people too deeply in their suffering, but that we have been too willing to justify our own sin.

Such an assertion is not a matter of linguistic pedantry (as some have suggested). Instead, it cuts to the heart of, or perhaps more accurately, exposes the assumptions that underlie Rigney’s indictment of empathy in his book.

Because you see, when Rigney identifies empathy (weaponised, untethered, or otherwise) as the thing that leads to communities characterised by “cowardice, indifference, and cruelty,” the underlying reality he is primarily concerned about is a particular kind of sinful inclination (i.e., being emotionally swept away from reason and truth) which he sees as inherent to a particular group of people (i.e., women).

Here is how I put it in my review:

… in his framing, empathy is the folly and tool of women who, unlike men, are neither innately reasonable, wise, nor objective.

…beneath the surface, Rigney’s all-consuming sin of empathy is, in reality, the sin of being a woman.

Of course, this diagnosis did not go down well with some. Case in point:

Anyone who paid careful attention to my review would know that I did not pull an insidious bait-and-switch by sneakily conflating feminism and women. Instead, I meticulously evidenced how, in his own words, Joe Rigney’s fifth chapter begins by arguing that feminism is to blame for empathy’s destructive influence… and ends by concluding that, actually, women are the ones responsible for unleashing empathy on the world.

The real issue is Medusa. All feminism did was let Medusa out of her cage.

The Sin of Being a Woman

Perhaps you think I am being uncharitable to Rigney? Maybe I’m reading things into his words that aren’t there?

Well, don’t take my word for it. Take his instead.

The day after my review was published, podcaster Beckett Cook released an episode with Joe Rigney about The Sin of Empathy. The first half of the episode focused on Rigney’s broad argument against empathy. The second half zoomed in on feminism and women. Here is how Rigney introduced that later part of the discussion:

“But one of the things we have to recognise is that men and women are different and women in particular are the more empathetic or compassionate sex… This is actually a really great design feature that God has built into women. It’s why they are so effective at nurturing, caring, hospitality; they are first responders when people are suffering… they are highly attuned to emotions… In general, everybody recognises that women are the more empathetic sex.

As a Danvers Complementarian I certainly agree that God has designed distinctions (as well as sameness) between men and women (i.e., the two sexes are equal but not interchangeable). And, sure, I think we can observe that men and women often demonstrate some general relational differences. I wouldn’t want to over-generalise (or confuse description with prescription). But let’s not nitpick. On with the show.

Rigney immediately continues:

What that means is that is a really great blessing in its place when it comes to nuture and care and being the glue that holds communities together… but things that are a blessing in one place become destructive when they are taken out of that place and asked to do something they are not designed for. So when it comes to guardianship, when it comes to drawing clear lines, setting a perimeter, when it comes to defining the doctrine and worship of the church or having a border as a nation, that same compassion actually becomes a liability.” Time stamp

Pay close attention to that bit in bold.

Rigney’s foundational claim here is that women’s more empathetic/compassionate nature—”the glue that holds communities together”—becomes a destructive liability in certain circumstances and situations. What are those? They are when women’s relational tendencies and dynamics presume to have a broader influence outside her immediate sphere of influence (presumably, the home) and within the boarder community. (That same community which, just moments ago, had been held together by the glue of those relational dynamics). It is especially when women presume to play any meaningful role in drawing clear lines or setting firm boundaries.

Why? Well because, according to Rigney, women are not naturally enabled to or capable of operating rationally, reasonably or reliably in these ways. Their more empathetic nature means they can’t, and so won’t, hold the line on truth. They can’t, and so won’t, discern and stick to true doctrine. They can’t, and so won’t, guard borders or boundaries.

Feminism has provided a vehicle by which women presume to attempt to do these things “they are not designed for” (elsewhere in the interview he describes this as “invading male spaces”). But, the root issue is the design flaw inherent to women themselves. The core concern is their compromised constitution. The fundamental feature is that “by nature”, women need to be constrained to a limited field of operations and influence… unlike men who, “by nature”, are meant to traverse fields of operation and influence. This is because men, unlike women, are constitutionally capable of exercising compassion without getting swept away by their emotions.

Are you still not convinced that I’ve pegged Rigney correctly? That's okay. Come with me as we look at a few other comments he made in that podcast.

“…when the trans-movement presents themselves as victims. women become mothers and so they orient to victims as mothers orient to a child who has just scraped their knee. And therefore they… [are going to say] ‘Ok, we’ll call Bruno a woman now because we don’t want to hurt Bruno’s feelings, because Bruno is oppressed and Bruno is a victim’.”
Time Stamp

Pay close attention to the narrative at play here.

Women’s nurturing nature means they maternally orient towards hurting people. Okay, that might be a generalisation, but perhaps it is a fair one. After all, female maternal nature counts for something, right?

But, look at how Rigney frames the inevitable outcome of that maternal orientation. He says that because women care deeply about the hurt of others, they “therefore” cannot and will not do anything other than affirm whatever the hurting person wants them to affirm.

According to Rigney, a woman’s compassionate, nurturing or empathetic nature means that, when faced with a complex emotional, rational, psychological or spiritual situation that involves the suffering of others, she is inherently incapable of exercising reason, discerning truth, and pursuing justice. All she sees is the scraped knee. And so, she caves. She gives in. She gets swept away by her feelings and lets go of even the most tenuous hold on objective reality. She is enslaved to her “empathy”.

Still not convinced? Read on.

In the episode, Beckett Cook suggests that “when a child comes out as gay or trans, it is usually the [Christian] mother who ends up caving to it… and becomes gay affirming and the [Christian] father doesn’t”. Rigney responds:

“A mother sees her child in distress and wants to relieve it, to do anything to make it better. She wants to kiss the boo-boo. Mothers comfort in that way. And so if the child says ‘This is who I am”’, Mom wants to accept. Right. She’s wired to do this. Which is why there needs to be some boundaries. She needs to have a husband and she needs to have a wider community that is going to say “no… we are the sort of people who do what God says”. Time stamp

Read that again.

A mother is wired to do anything and everything that makes her child's hurt go away… regardless of what is true, reasonable, good, just…and despite what God says. And so, “there needs to be some boundaries” placed around her to stop her from becoming a victim of her folly (and so too victimising others by it). What are those boundaries? Well, to save her (and others) from herself, she needs a husband and a community (presumably a community full of men since they are the sex capable of being compassionate and reasonable at the same time).

Because the mother is a slave to her feelings and so can’t say “No” to ungodliness and foolishness, she requires (male) others to do it for her.

But according to Joe Rigney, mothers are not the only females incapable of exercising discernment, applying reason, pursuing truth, and enacting justice in the face of their empathetic nature. In Rigney’s opinion, childless women are as equally self-deluded.

“It’s the mamma bear phenomenon, but for childless women. They don’t have children to nurture, but that maternal nature that God gave them is still there and looking for an outlet. And so it fixates then on the most deranged victims that they can find and therefore accommodates, appeases and demands that all of society reorient around these so called vicitms.” Time Stamp

According to Rigney, a woman’s empathetic nature is so desperate for an outlet, and so unable to be controlled and corralled, that even the childless woman will determinedly fixate on the most deranged victims. And then, to make matters worse, she’ll demand that everyone else accommodate and appease them in their (and now also her) derangement. She, too, is enslaved to her emotions and incapable of exercising rationality. Indeed, she is so enslaved to her emotions that she cannot help but fixate on those who are most unhinged… and in so doing becomes unhinged herself.

The Sin of Misogyny

Let me remind you what ‘Wokal Distance’ said in his (her?) critique of my review:

No. I didn’t pretend Rigney criticised a category of people based on their nature. Rigney himself criticises a category of people based on (what he perceives to be) their nature. Over and over and over again.

For Rigney, the sin of empathy is ultimately the sin of being a woman—of being that sexed human creature who is incapable of rationalising her feelings and controlling her passions; who is wired to become fully enmeshed with the hurting; who, as a result, seeks out the deranged, becomes deranged, and—when she doesn’t stay in her rightful place—deranges everyone else in the church and society around her.

Friends, I have been labelled as “a feminist” for simply calling out that view of women as insidious, infantilising, indoctrinating and invidious. Oh, and also unbiblical, unloving and unkind.

Really?! That’s what it is to be a feminist now?!

The bar is now so low that simply affirming the human female was designed by God to be equally capable of rationality, equally invested in preserving truth, equally concerned with guarding what is good — and, tragically, that these good design features in women were just as compromised by sin as they were in men — is enough to be branded a feminist? That’s where we’ve shifted the goal posts to, huh?

No. I’m not “a feminist”.

But someone who says the demeaning words about women that I’ve cited above is certainly a misogynist. And, frankly, so are those who would defend those words as being true, accurate and fair.

Anyone who claims that Joe Rigney faults feminism—rather than women themselves—for what he considers to be empathy’s destructive impact on church and society has either failed to understand his words or failed to take him at his words. As a result, they are not only blind to the misogyny running through his argument, but—as we’ll see in the next post—they are also blind to his argument’s internal incoherency, inaccuracy and inconsistency.

1

As I was writing this post I looked up the Merriam-Webster definition of ‘misogyny’ (see below) to make sure I wasn’t using the term incorrectly. Following a comment made on this post, I realised it might be helpful to mention that and to clarify that I use the word with respect to Joe Rigney’s cited comments about women as evidence of a prejudice against and, I think, a consequential aversion to women. I do not contend he “hates” women. But I do contend his comments are misogynstic in the other (equally valid) meanings of the word.

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Single Ever After has been ten years in the making. In fact, I embarked on a PhD with the specific goal of writing this book. (No, I’m not joking.) And so, of course, I’m both eagerly excited and quietly terrified about its upcoming release!

As I explain in the introduction:

“This book is for both the 20-year old single Christian excited about the prospect of marriage and also the 40-year-old who wonders if it will ever happen. It’s for the 32-year-old divorced single father and the 69-year-old widowed grandmother. It’s for those eagerly anticipating marriage and those grieving its absence; it’s for those single by choice and those single by circumstance; it’s for the content, the discontent, and those who feel both— sometimes, like me, at the very same time.

But this book isn’t just for singles. It’s also for their married friends and their church pastors. If that’s you, I’m so glad you’re reading these words. We, your single brothers and sisters, need your support as we seek to live for Jesus. We need your help to live out our singleness within our church family faithfully. We need you to love us well in our singleness and to help us love you well in it, too. All of that requires you to not only understand singleness itself but to understand us in our singleness.

Finally, this is a book about singleness but for everyone because, while only some of us will remain single—or become single again—in this life, in the eternal life to come, all of God’s people will be Single Ever After.”

You can read the full description, see the table of contents, and download the introduction and first chapter of Single Ever After at the first button below or pre-order it on Amazon at the second. An audiobook version will also be available (possibly narrated by yours truly!).

Check out SINGLE EVER AFTER

Pre-Order from Amazon

Exiling Empathy?

Empathy—or, more specifically, empathy as a tool of social manipulation—is becoming a hot topic in evangelical and secular discourse. One of the leading Christian proponents of the argument against empathy is Dr Joe Rigney, a fellow at New St Andrews College in Moscow, Idaho (he who has ears…).

The good folks at Mere Orthodoxy have just published my 5000 word review of Rigney’s new book The Sin of Empathy: Compassion and it’s Counterfeits.

“5000 words?!” I hear you groan.

Yep. 5000 words.

Why? Well, because sometimes it takes a lot of words to show why a lot of other words are the kind of words that we would do well to pay meticulous attention to.

“After reading The Sin of Empathy, we may be tempted to freeze in place, hoping that the “stuff and nonsense” will simply go away. But if, in this present moment, there is a book that right-minded, wisely discerning, and spiritually mature Christians—especially male pastors and leaders—ought to move on and speak against, it is this one. Because, you see, when Joe Rigney shouts at empathy, “Off with her head!” the real culprit he would metaphorically decapitate (as fitting for Medusa) is your sister in Christ.

But there is another, even more fundamental reason we must not become paralyzed by Rigney’s contrived claims and instead hold them up to the mirror of Scripture. If we accept that reason, truth, and justice stand in opposition to joining people in their suffering, what are we to make of the incarnation of Christ? Surely, the Word becoming flesh and making his dwelling amongst us (John 1:15) is the most profound act of empathy the world has ever known?”

Read my full review here...

So, without further ado, here are my five most read posts of this year.

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1. On Sitting in Church... Alone

Pssst: This was my most-read post… by a very long shot.

“During those months, I would walk into church and sit in a pew by myself. The pew in front of me was roped off. The pew behind me was roped off. In theory, if I sat at one end of the pew, then another lone person could come and sit right down at the other end of the pew. But in reality, almost nobody did that. For months, I sat alone in a pew, totally isolated, with nobody being allowed anywhere near me, watching family households walk into church and sit together week after week.

I spent most of those Sunday mornings either fighting back the tears or weeping silently. I have never felt as wretchedly alone as I did in church during those months.”

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2. Don’t Just Do It

“Let me speak frankly, earnestly and urgently.

Christians (and especially pastors), PLEASE stop telling young, immature men with a lack of self-control just to go out there, “find a godly gal” (anyone will do), and get married.

Wives are not the ready-made solution to those men’s immaturity. They are not an off-the-shelf remedy for those men’s lust.

Pastors encouraging, nay, commanding young Christian men who exhibit significant social and spiritual immaturity to just find someone, “pop the question, tie the knot and start making babies” is… well, it’s just 🤯. It puts the bulk of the burden of that guy’s selfishness, unreliability, fear of commitment, and lack of maturity on their young wife. She’s meant to be the solution, the thing that will set him on the right path.”

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3. The Church and its "Useful" Singles

“I’d be doomed for perpetual disappointment and frustration if I expected a Christian publisher to only ever publish stuff I agreed with. Indeed, they’d be doing me a disservice if they did! I need to engage with the views, perceptions and Scriptural interpretations of others. I need my own views, perceptions and Scriptural interpretations to be quizzed and challenged. I’ve matured enormously—in my theological thinking, my pastoral care and my personal godliness—by interacting with faithful Christians who think differently from me on a whole range of matters.

And so, as I clicked on the link to read ‘Promote Marriage and Dignify Singleness by Prioritizing God’s Mission’ by Jared Kennedy, I wasn’t sure what to think. And by the time I got to the end of the article I still wasn’t sure what I thought. I felt a bit disoriented, unsure quite what to make of it.”

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4. A Ruling on the 'Billy Graham Rule'

“Here is the thing: when it comes to the Billy Graham Rule. We’re used to hearing how much is at stake for the man and why this necessitates the rule being put firmly into place. But what about the women on the other end of the rule?

Here’s the irony. The man puts the rule in place in order to keep his reputation free from stain. But doing so requires him to first of all conceive of that woman as a threat to his godliness. The rule puts him above reproach, while it simultaneously casts her into a default position of stained reproach.

The man puts the rule into place because he is concerned about protecting himself from the possibility of being falsely accused. But doing so requires him to first of all conceive of that woman as someone who might falsely accuse him. The rule puts him beyond the reach of being falsely charged, while it simultaneously perceives her as someone who might charge falsely.”

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5. Peering at Marriage & Singleness Through the Lens of the Gospel

“Brothers and sisters, our bread and butter as Christians is not in found in reestablishing some perceived societal “status quo”. Rather, it is living out the Bible’s teaching as those transformed by the gospel of Christ. As we do this, we bear fruit, love the society around us and witness to the transformative power of that good news

And so, the best way to “defend” against singleness being misappropriated by a world that sees it as a license for self-indulgence, self-fulfilment and self-focus is not for us Christians to talk about singleness less, or to talk about singleness less positively.

No, our best response to the world’s corruption of the goodness of singleness is found in upholding the dignity, meaning, significance and purpose of that life situation according to God’s word.”

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Here’s the backstory.

Around that time, Twitter suddenly started limiting the exposure of Substack links on its platform. Those of us posting our links there found their views plummeting. Switching your Substack over to a custom domain name seemed to offer a workaround. And so, www.thatgirlbosstheologian.com was born.

I explain the full story behind the name in this post here. But if you are a TL;DR kinda person, the short story is that a doofus dude had called me an “annoying girlboss theologian”. Maggots were also involved in the comment. Instead of getting all offended by it, I—and a number of other women—decided to just embrace it as a satirical badge of honour. We may have had our own merch.

Thus, when I needed to pick a new domain name… well ‘That Girlboss Theologian’ seemed an obvious (and humorous) choice.

Alas, I have since received a growing number of snide doofus-esque comments about my moniker. Apparently, it marks me out as a proud, arrogant, feminist, liberal, man-hater. 🤷🏼‍♀️ It seems that recognising and appreciating satire is somewhat of a dying art these days.

Part of me—the doofuses would surely say the proud and arrogant parts—didn’t want to pander to those who lack both a sense of humour and a generous spirit. However, in the interest of becoming weak to win over the weak (and giving these guys one less reason to dismiss me out-of-hand), I decided it just wasn’t worth the hassle anymore.

And so it’s time to:

Say goodbye to That Girlboss Theologian

and

Say hello to (the far more boringly named) Dani(elle) Treweek | Writes.

In other words, this place has got a new name, a new domain (writing.danielletreweek.com) and a new accent colour. But apart from that, it's pretty much a case of keeping calm and carrying on. (Psst. I’m working on getting thatgirlbosstheologian.com to redirect here)

While you are here, I should apologise for being somewhat AWOL lately. It’s been a busy (and difficult) few months, and I haven’t had much spare time or emotional energy for writing on the side.

On June 2nd, my grandmother, Monica, passed away. My family and I had held 24/7 vigil by her hospital bedside for a week before she took her last breath. My sister and I were at her side as she did. I had spent six nights sitting next to her bed, stroking her hand and listening to her breathing. After she left us, it took me double that amount of time to stop waking up in a panic in the middle of the night because I could no longer hear the sound of her breathing in the room and I couldn’t find her within reach.

Death is just awful. Praise be that Jesus has defeated that last great enemy (1 Cor 15:25-26)

A few weeks later I was thankful to be able to take a solo writing retreat in Tasmania, Australia’s southernmost island state (or, depending on your perspective, Antarctica’s northernmost island territory). There I spent 8 days working on my forthcoming book on singleness (due for publication with The Good Book Company in late 2025). I drank a lot of tea, took long rambling walks to clear my head and realised that tending a fire alone is almost a full-time job.

After that, I headed north to Queensland, where I attended the Gafcon Australia conference before taking a proper ten-day holiday—or vacation, for my American readers. It was my longest uninterrupted holiday in a couple of years. There, I also drank a lot of tea, took long walks along the beach, and worked out the perfect air-conditioning temperature for maximum relaxation.

But now here I am. Back at my desk, busily unearthing my inbox, and actively fostering a state of denial about all the deadlines I have to meet over the next few months.

I’m looking forward to being back in your inbox soon. I can only hope that you’ll be just as interested in the thoughts of boring old Dani(elle) Treweek as you were in That Girlboss Theologian.

PS. In exciting news, The Meaning of Singleness is one of ten shortlisted for the Australian Christian Book of the Year Award!

Instead of doing one talk on marriage, one talk on divorce and one talk on singleness, I’ve written a series on relationships that flows out of, and is framed around, Romans 12:1-2:

¹ I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. ² Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (ESV)

After spending a lot of time in these two jam-packed verses over the last few weeks, I’ve found myself repeating one refrain over and over again in my head.

“It’s not enough to not conform”

Oh, certainly, Paul makes it very clear that Christians are not to be conformed to this world—or what the NIV describes as the “patterns of this world”. My first talk is premised on the fact that the world is very good at conforming us to its patterns, and often without us being in the least aware of it. We are each like a bowl full of liquid jelly, being poured into a worldly mould, settling into all its nooks and crannies, solidifying into its shape… coming out looking just like it.

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As those whom Christ has chosen out of the world (John 15:19), we are not to be moulded to it. And yet, we could all resolutely determine not to be conformed to this world, but then what? What shape should we take on? What nooks and crannies should we settle into? What should we come out looking like?

Not conforming is not enough.
We also need to be “transformed by the renewal of our minds”.

We must also be transformed

I find it so interesting that in Romans 12:2, Paul calls for his readers to undergo a transformation that comes through the renewal, not of their hearts (as we might expect), but of their minds. This transformative mind renewal will allow them to “discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect”.

Paul’s focus on the mind in Romans 12:2 echoes back to the previous verse, and specifically his use of the adjective modifying worship (“spiritual” in the ESV and “true and proper” in the NIV). The original Greek word is logikēn and it means logical, rational, or reasonable. At first glance, this seems a rather unusual word for Paul to have used in the context of Romans 12:1

“I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your rational/logical/reasonable worship.”

But I love how Christopher Ash draws the connection in his short commentary on Romans:

“Offered bodies come from changed minds, for the mind is the parliament of the body, where feelings are felt and assessed, options are considered, decisions are made, and affections are determined.”

- Christopher Ash

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The transformation that comes through the (gospel-shaped and gospel-powered) renewal of our minds is a transformation that sees us become those conformed not to the will of the world, but to the will of its creator. Such transformative conformity shapes us into the logical, rational, reasonable people we were created to be—those who discern and practice what is good and perfect in God’s sight. It allows us to offer our bodies—our whole selves—to him as living sacrifices. It marks us out as those who are holy and acceptable to him, who worship him truly, properly, spiritually logikēn-ly.

It is not enough to not be conformed to the patterns of this world. We must also be transformed by the gospel-shaped, gospel-powered renewal of our minds.

A case study in non-conformity, but not transformation

As I was writing the third talk in my series, on the other side of the world a man was giving a different talk. On Saturday May 11th, Kansas City football player Harrison Butker gave a commencement speech to the Catholic Benedictine College’s Class of 2024. And, well, social media exploded. Let’s just say that he copped a lot of backlash for veering off the world’s script. (You can read the full text of the speech here or watch the video itself here).

To be honest, I didn’t pay a lot of attention to all the palaver. (American football players are not of much interest to this Rugby Union watching Aussie). But one thing did catch my attention—the number of evangelical Christian leaders who posted supportive, complimentary, “heck yeah, preach it brother!” type comments, especially in response to what Butker said about the vocations of men and women.

Experienced evangelical leaders were calling this young(ish) Catholic layperson “courageous” for saying what he did. They said that even though they disagreed with his Catholic doctrine, he spoke “perceptively about the goodness of God-made manhood and womanhood”. They celebrated his “manly courage” and (metaphorically) rolled their eyes at the outrage he was enduring for just “saying what Christians have believed for two thousand years”.

In other words, they loved his non-conformity to the patterns of this world.

They loved comments like this:

“I want to speak directly to you [women] briefly because I think it is you, the women, who have had the most diabolical lies told to you”

And this:

“…this class, this generation, and this time in our society must stop pretending that the things we see around us are normal.”

And this:

“Part of what plagues our society is this lie that has been told to you that men are not necessary in the home or in our communities.”

And this:

“Be unapologetic in your masculinity, fighting against the cultural emasculation of men.”

They LOVED his non-conformity.

But they loved Butker’s non-conformity so much that they were largely willing to overlook his non-transformity. (And yes, I did just make that word up).

They so loved the parts where Butker stuck it to the world, that they were willing to just quickly by-pass, even ignore altogether, those comments which did not reflect gospel-renewed transformation of his mind.

Comments, for example, like this one:

“[My wife] is the person that knows me best at my core, and it is through our marriage that, Lord willing, we will both attain salvation.”

Did you catch that? Lord willing, it will be through marriage that he and his wife will attain salvation. Harrison Butker is a Catholic. Catholics believe that marriage is a sacrament, and that sacraments are efficacious expressions of the saving power of God—that is, they are an actual means of grace. Meanwhile, evangelicals do not believe marriage is a sacrament, and we do not believe sacraments are efficacious for salvation.

But let’s not allow a little thing like a fundamental difference in our understanding of God’s grace distract us from a mutual commitment to non-conformity. Preach it brother!

The same goes for a comment like this:

“The road ahead is bright. Things are changing. Society is shifting. And people, young and old, are embracing tradition. Not only has it been my vocation that has helped me and those closest to me, but not surprising to many of you, should be my outspoken embrace of the traditional Latin Mass. I've been very vocal in my love and devotion to the TLM and its necessity for our lives… The TLM is so essential that I would challenge each of you to pick a place to move where it is readily available.”

Again, did you catch it? Society is shifting, people young and old are embracing God’s Word. Ahem. Sorry, I mean “tradition”. They are embracing tradition.

Now remember, Butker is a Catholic, and Catholics hold to the authority of Big-T Tradition. He thinks there is a particular sort of T/tradition which is such a “necessity for our lives… so essential” that he advises his young listeners to move somewhere it is available—the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM).

What is the TLM? Well, it is a very old form of the Catholic Mass offered almost entirely in Latin (i.e., the majority of it is incomprehensible to 99.99% of people). There is some other unique stuff about it (such as the fact that the priest offers the Mass with his back to the people). But most significantly, like any Catholic Mass, in the TLM the priest offers the Sacrifice of Christ to the Father, in atonement for sin. As Butker explains:

“I still go to the TLM because I believe the holy sacrifice of the Mass is more important than anything else.”

In other words, Butker holds to the t/Traditional Roman Catholic view that Jesus Christ is necessarily re-sacrificed at every Mass celebration, and that this is absolutely vital. Yet this is something Protestants fundamentally reject and vigorously deny, holding as we do to the fact that “Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God,” (1 Peter 3:18).

But hey, let’s not allow a little thing like a fundamental difference in our understanding of the efficacy of Christ’s death distract us from a mutual commitment to non-conformity. Preach it, brother!

Along a similar line:

“Never be afraid to profess the one holy, Catholic, and apostolic Church, for this is the Church that Jesus Christ established, through which we receive sanctifying grace.”

Protestants don’t believe that sanctifying grace comes through the Church. But again, what’s a little heresy about the grace of Christ and work of the Spirit in light of a mutual non-conformity? Preach it, brother!

Changing focus a little, let’s look at something he said amid his comments directed to the young women in the Class of 2024. After telling them that they “should be proud of all that you have achieved to this point in your young lives”, he went on to “venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world”. Butker continued:

“I can tell you that my beautiful wife, Isabelle, would be the first to say that her life truly started when she began living her vocation as a wife and as a mother.”

Her life truly started when she began living into her vocation as a wife and as a mother. I’m sorry, but what a ridiculous statement. And what a particularly ridiculous statement to say to a bunch of young adult women who have just spent the last 3-4 years applying themselves to meaningful study, outputs, relationships and social development.

Of course, the vocations of wife and mother bring unique, wonderful, extraordinary (and often also very challenging and difficult) changes to a woman’s life. Of course, her life dramatically shifts as a result. But no woman’s life “truly starts” only once she has a ring on her finger and a baby at her breast.

Our lives begin at conception because we are made in God's image. We begin living life to the full when we trust in Jesus as the one who gives abundant life. None of us will be wives or mothers in eternity, yet that is where we will truly, perfectly, fully live. Forever. As I said, what a ridiculous statement.

But not only is Butker’s comment theologically erroneous, it is pastorally destructive. How do you think never-married Christian women, infertile Christian women, divorced or widowed Christian women feel upon hearing that? How do you think all of those women (most of whom would dearly love to be married to a godly Christian man) feel when they hear a man essentially say that women live in suspended animation until such a time that they become a wife and a mother?

But hey, why let a little thing like theological error and the pastoral devastation of countless sisters in Christ distract us from our mutual commitment to non-conformity? Preach it, brother!

Just one more, OK?

“Everything I am saying to you is not from a place of wisdom, but rather a place of experience”

This one is a little different because this remark is actually straight out of the ‘conformity-to-the-world playbook’. After all, the authority in our world is what? Lived experience.

We’ve got a 28 year old football player here advising young men and women about how they should live, and what is the basis for his advice? Not wisdom (however that is defined) but his experience.

In every other arena—especially in the LGBTQ/same-sex attraction arena—evangelicals are enthusiastic in their pushback against the authority of lived experience. And this is usually for good reason (even as it is also usually not done as lovingly as it should be). Sin has corrupted our minds and hearts, and we’ve been given over to our futile thinking (Romans 1). Our experience is far from trustworthy, let alone authoritative.

But when we have a young Catholic guy speaking from his lived experience (rather than from wisdom or God’s Word) to recruit others into his non-conformity, well then, that’s A-OK! Nothing to see here. Preach it, brother!

Friends, not conforming is not enough.

It is not enough for us to throw our arm around his (broad footballer) shoulders in mutual commitment to non-conformity, all while we know he doesn’t share a mutual commitment to the transformation of authentic gospel-shaped renewal of his mind.

Is it wrong for evangelicals to publicly acknowledge that they agree with aspects of his talk? Not at all. But when evangelicals enthusiastically offer public support for his “manly courage” and his wise perception on matters of non-conformity to the big, bad world, all while remaining largely silent about or casually cavalier of his false teaching about the gospel itself… then something is rotten in the state of Denmark.

Here is what we got:

Here is what I wish we got:

Friends, not conforming to the world is not enough.

We need transformation to a new, better, far more wonderful kind of conformity—conformity that comes through the renewing of our minds according to God’s word, conformity to what is good, acceptable, and perfect in God’s sight, conformity that leads us to offer our whole selves as living sacrifices to God as our logical, rational, reasonable, spiritual, true, proper, logikēn act of worship.

As Jesus’ disciples we are called to something far grander than mere non-conformity to the world. We are called to the dramatic transformation of the gospel in our lives.

Alas, Twitter had other plans.

In the following 36 hours, two different Twitter commentators posted two different tweets, the combined force of which had me pulling my pen and paper back out of the drawer (or, in reality, logging back into my Substack dashboard).

So here we are, ready for round two of talking about how babies are made, and not made, and who amongst men and women is apparently more naturally oriented towards or tethered to the babies that are made or not made and why exactly that is and is not.

Put more simply, we are going to consider the importance of why it is never a good idea to confuse God’s natural order with humanity’s fallen reality, particularly when it comes to sex, babies and being the one who made a baby because you had sex.

(Just in case you were wondering, the image below is the closest I could get to some sort of abstract representation of confusion—or, alternatively, the aftermath of a visit to a very confused hairstylist. May you enjoy it either way.)

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So, about those tweets…

(A note for newish readers: it is my normal practice to redact names/handles/photos of those whose social media comments I engage with in my Substack articles. This enables the focus to remain on the content rather than the person. However, since both of these tweets are from evangelical leaders who make significant contributions in the area of theological anthropology, I think it is appropriate, even important, for me to leave them unredacted on this occasion.)

On Being Oriented (or Not So Oriented)

Here is a series of tweets from a Twitter thread Michael Clary recently posted about the vocations of women (a thread that, for the record, I have not engaged in at all). Michael is a current nominee for SBC first vice president and author of God's Good Design: A Biblical, Theological, and Practical Guide to Human Sexuality and

Did you get that?

A woman’s body is obviously far more oriented toward potential motherhood than a man’s body is towards potential fatherhood. It is absurd to think that a man’s body is biologically designed for fatherhood to the same degree a woman’s body is biologically designed for motherhood.

My first thought was that perhaps someone could tell the (on average) 180 million sperm that is contained in every single male ejaculation and who are all competing to fertilise that one solitary egg that their originating male body is not biologically designed for fatherhood to the same degree or extent that a women is biologically oriented towards motherhood?

Ok. Yes, that is somewhat facetious. But, really?!

While I didn’t engage on that thread, I did reshare Michael’s first tweet, asking if this passes for commonplace evangelical teaching about men, women and procreation. It garnered quite a few “Ummmm. No. No it is not” responses. Michael then replied:

Note what Michael does in his response. He takes his initial statement made about what is natural, biologically designed and divinely ordered and, when pushed back on it, turns that into a statement about the consequences that are brought about because of sinfully distorted behaviour. Hold that thought, OK?

On Being Tethered (or Not So Tethered)

The second of the two tweets that captured my attention was made by Colin Smothers, (executive director of CBMW). It was posted as part of the Twitter discussion between Peter and I about his article. The last tweet (marked with a red *) is the one I want to draw your particular attention. The rest are provided for context:

So, to recap:

• Colin said Peter’s article is great, which presumably meant that he agreed with Peter’s key premise laid out in the article’s title: namely that the Pill is the main contraceptive technology that has obscured God’s truth (i.e., that which we would say is natural) about the sexual differentiation between men and women.

• He said the article pushes back on the worldly (“spirit of the age” i.e., unnatural) idea of interchangeability between men and women in the arena of sex and procreation.

• I said I was unsure how the Pill has singularly fostered this (worldly) interchangeability and so singularly thwarted God’s distinct design for men and women.

• Colin replied: “Men are naturally “untethered” from the possible outcome of their own sexuality (children) in a way women are obviously not. The Pill, more than any other technology, radically altered that picture, with abortion as its backstop — thus accelerating interchangeability.”

Now, just take a moment to appreciate what he is saying here.

Men are naturally untethered from the possible outcome of their sexual actions (i.e. becoming a father through the conception of a child). This untethering is part of their natural (ie. divinely ordained and intended) design. The problem with the Pill is it allowed women to emulate men by untethering themselves from the consequences of their sexual actions. This is bad because it is part of the androgynous agenda of the spirit of this age, which stands opposed to God’s created purpose. To put it another way:

• Men being untethered from the consequences of their sexual actions = being men = natural = good.

• Women trying to do the same = trying to be men = worldly = bad.

Now, to be fair to Colin, he has said that he “didn’t know how you got that out of what I wrote. It seems willfully obtuse”. He said all he meant was that:

“But because of the unique role differentiation in the process — women gestate the baby for nine months while men do not — sin has distorted that reality to subsidize men a level of promiscuity not possible for women, apart from the Pill, abortion, etc.”

But no, that is not what he originally said. He agreed with Peter’s claim that women’s use of the Pill to untether sex from conception has obscured God’s truth about sexual differentiation because it makes her more like a man who has the ability “to engage in sex without necessarily considering procreation” (a quote from Peter’s article).

Colin’s initial comment was about the natural tethering/untethering about what is true (or ought to be true) within the created order, not what is the result of sin’s distortion. He’s made the same move that Michael Clary did: Make a statement about what is part of the “natural” order, and when critiqued, double down that all you meant is that we live in a sinful world.

Conflating Natural Order with Fallen Reality

For the record, I don’t believe Colin Smothers or Michael Clary intentionally set out to confuse or conflate natural order with fallen reality. Unfortunately, neither of them have acknowledged that this is precisely what they have done.

They essentially say the same thing, albeit with a slightly different focus. Because women are the ones who fall pregnant, their bodies have a more natural (i.e., divinely ordered) orientation towards reproductive realities than men’s bodies do. Because women are the ones who fall pregnant, they were designed with a more natural link or tether between their sexual actions and its procreative consequences.

Let me be clear. Nurturing a child in your womb and then birthing that child in the world is an enormous, distinctive, wonderful privilege that only women experience. It is a fundamental part of God’s good design for women, and women only, in this creation. I expect I will grieve for the rest of my life that I was not blessed with experiencing it myself. I fully endorse that it brings into focus the magnificently unique relationship between mother and child and the magnificently unique beauty of motherhood.

But…

Being the one who falls pregnant does not mean that God designed a woman’s sexual actions to be more “naturally tethered” to the possible consequences of those actions than a man’s.

Being the one who falls pregnant does not mean that a woman’s biology is more naturally oriented towards conception than a man’s.

Being the one who falls pregnant does not mean a woman is more naturally designed for parenthood than a man.

In God’s good, pre-Fall, “natural” design, he created both men and women (and, indeed. child!) to be equally bound and blessed by the link between sex and procreation. That men and women experience that link differently does not mean they are more or less tethered by the link, or more or less oriented towards its potential outcome.

Yes, the reality of carrying (or potentially carrying) a child in your body is a wonderfully distinctive experience of that binding and blessing link. Women are not only reminded of that when they are actually pregnant but, indeed, every time they menstruate.

But so, too, is the experience of a man who looks at that positive pregnancy test that confirms he and she have together conceived a child, who marvels at the growth of her belly as it nurtures and protects their child, who waits in sheer anticipation for that moment when he finally gets to meet and hold and welcome and know their child. The reality that he is and always will be the one who fathered this child.

That is God’s “natural” design for women, men and children. That is how he has naturally tethered them to one another and how he has naturally designed their biology to orient towards parenthood.

Equal Opportunity Sinners

Whenever men recklessly exploit their sexuality to untether, sever or disorient themselves away from their procreative potential and purpose it is a result of their self-serving fallen flesh, not how they were “naturally” created. That they were made with the capacity to father countless babies to countless women does not make the sinful exercise of such a capacity “natural” (any more than the person born with strong biceps “naturally” exercises that capacity by sinfully knocking people out according to their whim).

That the Pill allows women to engage in sex without necessarily considering the consequences of their sexual action is not primarily problematic because it artificially makes them more like men. No, it’s (potentially) problematic because it is (potential) evidence of their own self-serving sinful nature. It (potentially) demonstrates the woman’s intent to sever the natural link between sex and conception, just as men have merrily been doing for millennia. (I use the word “potentially” because not all women take the Pill for contraceptive purposes alone.)

Sin is what singularly severs the link between sex and procreation. Sin is what singularly obscures the truth of God’s created differentiation of the sexes. And tragically, sin is what makes men and women into equally self-serving opportunists.

How wonderful that the gospel brings redemption, forgiveness and hope to all sinners alike!

I don’t know how prevalent this particular confusion and conflating of natural order and fallen reality is. I don’t think I have ever seen it vocalised before—at least not so directly or specifically. So perhaps these two comments reflect nothing other than these two men’s isolated opinions (though I have privately communicated to Peter that I believe the premise of his article lies downstream from it. He rejects this). But I also recognise that these two men occupy positions of prominence and influence (especially when it comes to the areas of men, women and sexuality in the church) and that their separate comments bubbled to the surface in entirely unrelated discussions. Both of these factors make me slightly nervous that this particular conflation and confusion may be more widespread than I had ever thought it could be.

Ultimately, what matters is that we eradicate any such conflation and confusion quick-smart. If there was ever a good time to “naturally” exercise some strong theological biceps for a knock-out punch, then, for the sake of men, women and (so, so, importantly) children, this here is it.

My natural verbosity is one of the reasons I actually like Twitter. Some of the time. A tweet’s character limits force me to keep it brief. Even a multiple-tweet thread requires me to think carefully about how to construct and communicate my argument in line with the number of characters I can use for each individual comment. Writing a tweet forces me to think carefully about what point I’m trying to make and how to make that point clearly, articulately and succinctly.

But with brevity comes risk. Risk of being unable to get your point across as clearly as you would like. Risk of being misunderstood. Risk of not providing enough context. Risk of taking things out of context. The Twitterer has to live with this kind of risk. They have to live with the knowledge that what they have said is almost never everything they could say.

Yesterday, I tweeted about the ‘Billy Graham Rule’.

The tweet was so brief that I didn’t even hit the yellow “you’ve only got 20 characters left so you better make it good” warning, and that almost never happens for me!

I stand by both that tweet and its brevity (hold your horses, I’ll share it with you in a moment). But there are times when the point of a brief tweet can be strengthened by a not-so-brief follow-up discussion. So here we are on my Substack… and sorry guys but it has no character limits.

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Questioning the Rule

Before we get to my tweet about the Billy Graham Rule (henceforth, BGR —because we Christians love our acronyms), let’s consider what the BGR actually is. The following is sourced from the Billy Graham Evangelical Association’s website:

Recently, “the Billy Graham rule” has been in the news—a reference to the second of four rules Mr. Graham and his team created decades ago to maintain ministry integrity. This particular rule deals with upholding sexual morality. Read below for background on these four rules, known as “the Modesto Manifesto”: 

The website goes on to explain more about the particular rule that has colloquially come to be known as the BGR. In the words of Graham himself:

The second item on the list was the danger of sexual immorality. We all knew of evangelists who had fallen into immorality while separated from their families by travel. We pledged among ourselves to avoid any situation that would have even the appearance of compromise or suspicion. From that day on, I did not travel, meet or eat alone with a woman other than my wife. We determined that the Apostle Paul’s mandate to the young pastor Timothy would be ours as well: “Flee … youthful lusts” (2 Timothy 1:22, KJV).

Now, I already have questions.

Is it OK to assume that daughters and mothers are exempt from the rule? But perhaps more importantly, what constitutes “alone”? Is it being behind closed doors? Is it being in private, but not behind closed doors? Is it being one-on-one with a woman in a public space such as a cafe or a building lobby? Does going for a stroll with a woman along a highly-travelled path count as being alone? Do phone calls between a man and a woman count as “meeting?” Does the age or situation of the woman matter? For example, would a housebound elderly woman also be exempt?

None of these questions are facetiously put. They are all genuine questions that arise from Graham’s own description of his eponymous rule. What are the boundaries of the rule? What is included and excluded? Should we err on being more or less conservative in our interpretation and application? The answer to all those questions is “🤷‍♂️ It’s up to you”.

And that’s the first thing we need to know about the BGR in ministry contexts today. Because it is all in the individual's interpretation and application, we’re not all necessarily on the same page when we talk about the rule and putting it into practice. Some who affirm the BGR will happily meet with a woman one-on-one in a public setting. Some will never meet with a woman one-on-one in any setting. Some will happily have regular phone calls with a woman. Some will never speak to a woman on the phone. Some will happily have a coffee with a woman in the local cafe. Some will never suggest or agree to such a thing.

The first thing to note about the BGR is that it’s not always clear what we actually mean by it.

Context Matters

But the second thing to note about the BGR is that it was a “rule” developed by a particular group of men who were in a particular context. As Graham says:

We all knew of evangelists who had fallen into immorality while separated from their families by travel.

The men who created and committed to this rule were itinerant preachers and travelling evangelists whose ministry was (usually) undertaken in isolation from their wives, their families and their lives back home. The women they were (not) meeting with were often strangers with whom they had no relational, pastoral, or ongoing connection. Their wives usually had no clue who these women were, nor that their husbands were in the potential position to be meeting with these particular women one-on-one.

But the overwhelming majority of adherents to that rule today are not in that same context. Instead, they are typically male church pastors whose ministry is undertaken in the vicinity of (sometimes even inside) their home. The women they are (not) meeting with are usually members of their congregations or perhaps members of their church’s ministry team. Not only are these women most often known to the pastor’s wife, but very often, the pastor’s wife knows the day-to-day meeting schedule of her husband.

The contexts are not at all the same.

Now, that doesn’t mean that the BGR has no legitimate application outside its original context. However, it is incumbent upon us to recognise that Graham et al. developed and practiced this rule in an entirely different relational context, with an entirely different set of pastoral expectations and implications.

In one sense, we might argue that a church pastor’s context makes the application of this rule only more important and urgent. For example, the fact that there is an existing and ongoing connection between a pastor and a female congregant means there may be more opportunity or temptation towards impropriety were they to meet one-on-one. That may indeed be the case.

But a church pastor’s context also means there is more at stake in the application of the BGR, and especially for the women at the other end of that rule. These are not strangers. They are sheep within the flock. These are not women who the pastor will never see again. They are sisters in Christ that they are called to disciple. The man is not an itinerant traveller leaving town tomorrow. He is the pastor of her church, the appointed overseer of the household of God of which she is a valued member. Yes, there is much at stake for him and his ministry. But there is also so very much at stake for her.

Today a male friend of mine shared with me the practice of the senior pastor of a church he had attended many years ago and for whom he had much respect. This pastor had decided to apply the BGR to his ministry and, in fact, to go beyond it. He made it clear that. in order to honour his wife, he would not develop any sort of meaningful friendship or relationship with a woman other than her. My friend mused that, for many years, this pastor faithfully executed his ministry and maintained a strong marriage. But there were consequences. Women in his congregation told my friend they did not feel their pastor loved or knew them.

The Women Behind the Keep-Out Tape

Which brings me back to my tweet.

My tweet was a response to another tweet—actually, a duo of tweets, both written by male Christian leaders. It is my usual practice to redact the names of people whose tweets I interact with here, and this time won’t be any different. I’m not trying to hide my sources (a quick search on Twitter will bring those up for you). But in these posts, I want to engage with the substance of what a person says rather than be seen to launch an offensive against the person themselves.

With that said, here are the two original tweets (from two different men):

And here is my response:

I wanted to take (or rather create) the opportunity to speak a little bit more about why I responded to those tweets in the way I did. To share with you what was going on in my head and heart when I read those first two tweets.

Here is the thing: when it comes to the BGR, we’re used to hearing how much is at stake for the man and why this necessitates the rule being put firmly into place. But what about the women on the other end of the rule?

We hear that the pastor occupies a position of public ministry, and so it is vital that he not just be above reproach in his own behaviour but also never be anything other than this in the eyes of another. He needs to disallow any opportunity for temptation and any possibility for misperception. The best way to do that is to keep out the women.

We hear that the pastor occupies a position of public ministry, and so he is vulnerable to being falsely accused of sexual harassment, impropriety or abuse. He must never allow himself to be in any situation where a false charge could be levelled at him. The best way to do that is to keep out the women.

We hear that the rule exists for the sake of the man. The only woman who ever comes into active consideration in the application of the rule is their wife.

But when do we hear about the women left on the other side of that yellow “keep out” tape?

Here’s the irony. The man puts the rule in place in order to keep his reputation free from stain. But doing so requires him to first of all conceive of that woman as a threat to his godliness. The rule puts him above reproach, while it simultaneously casts her into a default position of stained reproach.

The man puts the rule into place because he is concerned about protecting himself from the possibility of being falsely accused. But doing so requires him to first of all conceive of that woman as someone who might falsely accuse him. The rule puts him beyond the reach of being falsely charged, while it simultaneously perceives her as someone who might charge falsely.

For the rule to protect the honourable man, it must first of all assume the worst of the nameless woman. She is no longer that unique sister in Christ. Rather she becomes a potential threat. She is no longer that unique disciple in need of encouragement and exhortation. Rather she becomes a potential accuser.

She loses her individuality and instead becomes a category.
She stops being one of the sheep and instead becomes a risk to the shepherd.

So should we just ditch the rule?

Does this mean I think the BGR rule has absolutely no place in church (or wider) ministry?

No. It doesn’t. Far from it.

Boundaries, discernment and wisdom, are vital in the area of male/female relationships in the church, especially between a male church leader and female members of his congregation or ministry team.

It is not the “rule” itself that is the problem, but our attitude behind and to the rule.

If we see any particular iteration of the BGR as necessary to protect men from women, we are missing the point that boundaries exist in order to serve others well.

If we see any particular iteration of the BGR as necessary to prioritise the interests of men because of the threat of women, then we are missing the point that wisdom is oriented towards love of the other.

Wise, careful, faithful boundaries between men and women in the church ought to prioritise the fact that people are not categories but individual disciples. They are not caricatures but spiritual siblings.

“Rules” exist to invite people into appropriate, loving, kind relationships with us. Not to keep people out.

Furthermore, thoughtful and informed implementation of Billy Graham-type rules can be of great service to women themselves! On one of my first days serving full-time on a church ministry team here in Sydney (as a women’s discipleship trainer and coordinator), the senior pastor/minister of our church had someone cut a sizeable hole in his office door and insert into it a glass window. He did that so he and I could meet in his office without qualms, concern or suspicion.

I was so incredibly thankful for that kindness. Yes, it demonstrated to me that he took his own godliness seriously. But just as importantly, it demonstrated to me that he took my godliness seriously. It also showed that he wanted me to feel comfortable and safe meeting one-on-one with him. And perhaps most meaningfully to me at the time, it meant that he was committed to meeting with me one-to-one as he did with my male ministry colleagues. The window in that door was a constant reminder that he valued my role and my contribution to our team. It was an ever-present affirmation that he saw me as an individual, not a category.

So by all means, let the rule rule. But let it rule in wisdom, in kindness and in love. Let us speak about it in ways that demonstrate that we respect the women in our churches as the unique, important, individual sisters in Christ that they are. Let us apply it in ways that show them (and remind us) that they are a necessary part of the body and, as such, rightly deserve our honour rather than our suspicion.

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Being Church: Life in the Family of God

… Let me be very clear. Marriage is a wonderful gift from God. It has enormous significance, enormous meaning, and enormous importance. Marriage is very, very good, and it is able to bear very, very good fruit. Most wonderfully, our marriages are meant to point us towards the eternal marriage between Christ and the Church. Marriage is so important. 

But marriage is not how we belong to the church. Marriage is not how we feel connected to others in the church. Marriage is not the way we enter into relationships in the church.

The Bible honours marriage, and it calls us to honour marriage. But when it comes to life in the family of God, do you know what male/female relationship it talks about over and over again? Do you know what male/female relationship Scripture puts at the very heart of life in the family of God?

It isn’t husband and wife.
It is brother and sister in Christ.

The Bible reveals that our life together in the family of God is fundamentally the life of sons and daughters of God and, therefore, brothers and sisters in Christ.

Even just something as simple as a search on the word “brother” in the New Testament brings that truth rushing home to us.  Here’s a list of all the New Testament books with the number of times the word “brother” is used in each.  For the sake of the exercise, I’ve left the gospels out of this list because they quite often use the word brother to speak about actual biological brotherhood rather than spiritual brotherhood.  

• Acts (31)

• Romans (17)

• 1 Corinthians (32)

• 2 Corinthians (12)

• Galatians (11)

• Ephesians (2)

• Philippians (9)

• Colossians (5)

• 1 Thessalonians (17)

• 2 Thessalonians (7)

• 1 Timothy (2)

• 2 Timothy (1)

• Philemon (4)

• Hebrews (8)

• James (15)

• 1 Peter (1)

• 2 Peter (2)

• 1 John (12)

• 3 John (1)

• Jude (1)

• Revelation (4)

In those books, the word “brother” is used 194 times.

The overwhelming majority of the instances refer to spiritual, rather than biological, brotherhood. In each of those references, the word “sister” is either used alongside “brother”, or it is theologically implied as part of the spiritual sibling relationship on view.

194 times.

But to get a greater sense of what the New Testament actually means when it speaks about brothers and sisters in the family of the Church,  let’s zoom in on just one of those books in the Bible—the book of Acts. In this book, we get a remarkable insight into the life of the early church in their baby years, right as they were getting started. As the family of God was being formed, how were they speaking about their relationships with each other within that family?

Well, let’s look at the very first time the Apostle Peter addressed the church after Jesus had ascended. In fact, let’s look at the very first words he used as he did that.

In those days, Peter stood up among the believers (a group numbering about a hundred and twenty)  and said, “Brothers and sisters…”. (Acts 1:15-16)

Right there, in the very first chapter of Acts, when the total number of Christians in the world was a small portion of the number of people reading this particular post, Peter was already addressing them as his and each other’s brothers and sisters.

Or consider what happened when the apostles gathered all the Christians in Jerusalem together so that the church might appoint a number of its members to oversee the practical needs of the church. We are told the apostles said:

Brothers and sisters, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom...  (Acts 6:3)

Right from the very start, the gathered church, the family of God, the men and women who made up his household were each other’s brothers and sisters.

And so it is no surprise that as we trace through Paul’s missionary journeys in later chapters of Acts, over and over again, we read about how he visited with “brothers and sisters” all over the place. Most of these men and women were people he had never met before. And yet he speaks about meeting, being welcomed by, staying with the “brothers and sisters” in Judea (Acts 11:29), in Phillipi (Acts 16:40), in Corinth (Acts 18:18), in Ptolemais [Phoenica] (Acts 21:7), in Jerusalem (Acts 21:17), in Puteoli [Naples] (Acts 28:13), in Rome (Acts 28:15) and elsewhere.

Right from the very beginning, life between members of this new, burgeoning, forming family of God was the life of brothers and sisters.

Now, that is not exactly news to us, is it? We’re used to the New Testament authors using the language of siblings and, in fact, using it frequently. But I fear that the language of “brother and sisters” is so familiar to us that it has become overly familiar to us. To put it another way, I fear we are so used to seeing that phrase in Scripture that we almost don’t see it anymore.

We’ve domesticated being brothers and sisters in Christ into a nice, warm-fuzzy sentiment and little more than that. And perhaps that’s not particularly surprising given the place siblings occupy in our context today. Siblings are often nice to have. By and large, we appreciate having brothers or sisters. Most of us love them most of the time (even if that may be harder for some than others!).

Brothers and sisters are not unimportant to us today. But they are not the essential relationship within the modern family. They are not the glue that holds the household together. They are not the male/female relationship at the centre of the family. For us, that honour belongs to marriage.

But that wasn’t the case at the time of Jesus, at the time of the early church, at the time the New Testament was being written.  At that time, in that place, the relationship between husband and wife was important, sure. But it was the relationship between brothers and sisters that was the fundamental, the foundational, the formative relationship that lay at the heart of the family.

Here is how Joseph Hellerman puts it in his book When the Church Was a Family:

Among those who belong to the same generation in the world of Mediterranean antiquity, the closest family tie was not the contractual relationship between husband and wife. It was the blood relationship between siblings. As is now generally recognised by students of ancient family systems, the strongest ties of loyalty and affection in the New Testament world were ideally those shared among a group of brothers and sisters. The emotional bonding modern Westerners expect as a mark of a healthy husband-wife relationship was normally characteristic of sibling relationships. (p. 37-38)

Can you think of a passage in the gospels that gives us a glimpse into the deep 1st Century intimacy between siblings? Well, there are a bunch of them, but let me pick just one. For me, its perhaps the most moving of them all. Here is a short excerpt from it:

Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha.  (This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair.)  So the sisters sent word to Jesus, “Lord, the one you love is sick.”
…
On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. Now Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem, and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother. (John 11:1-3, 17-19)

We know there is a good news story here. Jesus brings Lazarus back from the dead! But have you ever stopped to wonder about the emphasis on siblinghood in this passage?

When Lazarus is sick, it is not a wife, children or parents who send word to Jesus. It is his sisters.

When Lazarus dies, it is not a wife, children, or parents who many Jews travel from Jerusalem to comfort. It is his sisters.

When Jesus arrives, it is not a wife, children or parents who rush out to meet him and fall at his feet. It is a sister.

When Jesus is moved to tears over Lazarus’ death, it is not the grief of a wife or children or parents that prompts that. It is the grief of his sister.

For 1^st Century readers, it would have made complete sense why this story was about a man and his two sisters. For Mary, Martha and Lazarus, their most intimate family relationships were with each other as brothers and sisters.

For us 21^st Century western readers, the whole idea grates. Yet our role is not to judge what people in the 1^st Century thought about the family. Instead, it is to understand what they thought about the family.  Because if we do that, we can better understand why the New Testament speaks about family in the way it does, and what implications that has for our life together in the family of God today…

This post comes to you from San Antonio, Texas where the weather has been warm(ish), the Mexican food has been abundant and the ETS annual meeting (the what now? see below!) has been a whole lot! I’ll explain more about that in a bit. But for the moment…

Some exciting news (and a request)!

The Meaning of Singleness is a finalist in IVP Reader’s Choice Awards!

The fact that an academic book (based on my PhD dissertation) is a reader’s choice finalist in the category of ‘cultural engagement’ is both unexpected and wonderful! I take it to be more evidence of the fact that the evangelical church is beginning to embrace fresh and faithful discussions about singleness in the Christian life and community!

If you’ve read, enjoyed or in some other way benefitted from The Meaning of Singleness would you consider voting for it at the link below?

A win would be a significant boost in keeping the conversation about singleness front and centre in the evangelical discourse.

VOTE FOR THE MEANING OF SINGLENESS NOW

Voting closes at midnight (I guess CST?) on Friday, November 17th. Yes, that’s tomorrow!

Everyone who votes goes into the draw to win a collection of each of the winning books from all categories. Plus, all finalist titles can be purchased direct from IVP for a 25% discount using the code above.

HERE'S THAT VOTING LINK AGAIN :)

What the heck is ETS?

As I said above, this week I’ve been attending the annual meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society in San Antonio. It’s a yearly conference where hundreds of theological and biblical scholars get together to present, listen to and engage with a lot of papers on a whole lotta different topics. I haven’t done an actual count of the total number of papers given across the three days but I’m guessing it would be somewhere in the range of 400+.

On Tuesday morning there was a three-hour session focused on my work in The Meaning of Singleness. This was one of perhaps only six sessions across the whole conference specifically and entirely focused on a recently published book. It was an incredibly humbling privilege to have my work taken so seriously by those who gave papers (see below), the organisers of ETS who approved the proposal and all those who attended our session.

Rachel Gilson & Matthew Lee Anderson each presented thought-provoking papers building off and taking further some of the work I had done in the book. We did have another speaker slotted in to give a paper but unfortunately, he was unable to attend for (very good) personal reasons. So I stepped into the breach and presented a paper based on content from my dissertation that hadn’t made it into the book.

From left to right: Rhys Bezzant (session moderator), myself, Rachel Gilson & Matthew Lee Anderson.

As much as that session was a total (surreal) highlight for me, the thing I love most about ETS are the people I get to meet and spend time with. When I wasn’t sitting in a session listening to a paper, I was speaking with theologians in the lobby, bumping into biblical scholars in the (giant) bookstore, sharing meals with friends I only see once a year when I travel to the other side of the world, or having coffee with publishers and other very interesting individuals.

This is a small group of authors who are writing commentaries for the upcoming Hodder Bible Commentary series. The first four volumes of the series will be published in mid 2024. I’m authoring the 1 & 2 Thessalonians volume (it’s a few years away from publication yet!)

All of ETS was great, but the thing I was most incredibly surprised by, thankful for and excited about is the number of people who wanted me to know that God is graciously allowing my work and writing on singleness to bear fruit in their lives and within their church communities. I was genuinely surprised but so deeply encouraged by the number of people who approached me across the course of the conference to share how my work has been significant for them personally and was even inspiring their own work in this field.

I often joke about how I did a PhD in order to write a book. But in all honesty, it’s true. I undertook doctoral research in order to produce both a careful and faithful book on the topic of singleness… for the sake of the church. I wanted to write something that, in God’s goodness and kindness, might be an edifying resource for single Christians themselves but also for the body of Christ as a whole. My part in helping shape this broader conversation is just one small part. But I’m so, so thankful to God for allowing me to play that small part in helping his people see the gospel meaning, dignity and significance of the unmarried Christian life.

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In all fairness, it’s not exactly a new argument. But for one reason or another, it seems to be having a bit of a moment.

And look, the thing is, it might even be correct. The Apostle Paul may indeed have been married at some point in his life.

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Before his conversion, Paul was a Pharisee (Acts 23:6, Phil 3:5), and tradition has it that Pharisees were typically married. So perhaps he had been married but had been widowed by the time he was writing his epistles?

Or maybe Paul the Pharisee had been married to a good Jewish woman who was absolutely appalled at her husband’s conversion to that horrific little cult he had previously been set on eradicating from the face of the earth, and so she divorced him (cf. 1 Cor 7:12-13)?

Or perhaps Paul had been an exception to the Pharisaical tradition and wasn’t married before becoming a Christian, but he got hitched later in life? Some argue that his phrase “true yoke-fellow” in Philippians 4:3 references a supposed wife. Others disagree.

So maybe Paul was married at some point in his life? Before his conversion? After his conversion? Widowed? Divorced? The reality is that I don’t think we can know for sure.

But I want to suggest that there is one thing we CAN know with a high degree of confidence. The Apostle Paul was NOT married when he wrote the letter we call First Corinthians.

But first, some background.

Paul planted the church at Corinth sometime around AD50 and probably over a period of about 18 months. Some years later (likely somewhere between AD 54-57 while he was in Ephesus) he wrote some follow-up letters to them. Two of them are preserved in the Bible. We call them First and Second Corinthians (or, if you are an Aussie like me, you more likely call them One and Two Corinthians).

OK. So what does all this have to do with the question of whether Paul was married and if so, when he was married? Well, the argument that is having a new moment in the sunshine not only claims that Paul was married at some point, but that he was a married dude all through the course of his ministry. In other words, its proponents claim that Paul had a wife at the time he wrote his first letter to the Corinthians.

According to the ‘Paul Was a Married Dude All Along’ argument, following his conversion, the Apostle left his wife at home to travel around on his 20-year-long triple missionary journey. He’d also been doing quite a bit of travelling and itinerant preaching and church planting for at least 10 years before that. And even that was was preceeded by a few years of his chasing Christians around Jerusalem and Judea.

So according to this theory, Mr & Mrs Paul would have essentially spent very little time together for a period of 30+ years. And then Paul died. Essentially they would have had a marriage characterised by long-term separation and sexual abstinence. (Some suggest they were in a “spiritual marriage” — i.e., a recognised marital tradition in which both husband and wife mutually renounce all sexual activity with each other in order to live celibately while married. However, this is an anachronistic claim. The development of “spiritual marriages” as a recognised —though I think the Apostle himself would suggest, dubious—Christian practice emerged sometime in the following century.)

All of this means that according to the ‘Paul Was a Married Dude All Along’ argument, when Paul wrote about marriage and (what we today call) singleness in 1 Corinthians 7, he was writing as a married man.

Right. So, here we have some people claiming that Paul was married when he wrote 1 Corinthians and its (in)famous chapter 7. And here am I claiming that we can know with a high degree of certainty that the Apostle was quite plainly not married when he penned that chapter and verse.

On what basis can I make such a confident claim? On the basis of the biblical text itself.

Simply put, 1 Corinthians 7:1-9 (not to mention other parts of the chapter) would make absolutely no. logical. sense had Paul written it as a married man.

To illustrate my conclusion, I’ve copied and pasted the text of 1 Corinthians 7:1-9 (NIV) below with some… editorial insertions. The bits in bold italics represent a series of logical explanations and argumentative clarifications that we would need to read into the text if we were to understand that the Apostle Paul was writing this passage as someone who was married. And even with them in place… well, you’ll see.

Here it is.

1 Corinthians 7:1-9 - The PWAMDAA (‘Paul Was a Married Dude All Along’) Version

¹ Now for the matters you wrote about: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.” ² But since sexual immorality is occurring, each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman with her own husband. ³ Except for me and my wife. We’re an obvious exception to this general exhortation that I’m giving the rest of you (oh, and also all Christians throughout time). The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband.  Again, except for me and Mrs Paul. Our covenantal relationship is clearly exempt from such marital duty.

⁴ The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife. ⁵ Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Again, this applies to Christians who aren’t me and my honey-bun. We’ve agreed to deprive each other. Indefinitely. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.   At the risk of repeating myself, my missus and I are obviously exempt from troublesome matters such as struggling with sexual self-control. Satan would be totally wasting his time trying to tempt either of us so he doesn’t even bother. The rest of you are fair game though.

⁶ I say this as a concession, not as a command.  ⁷ I wish that all of you were as I am.  To clarify, I mean I wish that all of you were married. Just like me. But also married and not living together, not doing life together and not having sex together. Just like me. Yeah I know that last bit contradicts everything I said above. But don’t over think it. Though, while I have your attention, let me give you a quick heads up that what I’m about to say is not going to make any more sense than what I just said. But…just run with it, OK?  But each of you has your own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that. ⁸ Mine is to be married while basically not ever having sex with or doing any part of life with my wife at all. You may not have the same gift. C’est la vie.  

Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I do. Ok. So here is where I might really be at risk of losing you. I mean, I’m addressing those of you who aren’t married, right? The unmarried and the widows. And I’m telling you to remain as I do. Except that we all know that I’m married and you’re not. You guys are not at all in the same situation as me. So actually, you can’t stay as I do. But hey, don’t let those pesky details bother you. As I was saying, it’s good for you to be as I am and stay as I am even though you aren’t actually as I am and so can’t stay as I am. Moving on now.

⁹ But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion. Ok, so yeah, I get it. I’m still not making any sense. I’m telling you to remain as I am even though you can’t remain as I am because I’m married and you’re unmarried. But now I’m telling you unmarried peeps that you should remain as I am—married but not having sex with my wife—while also telling you that if you can’t stop yourself from having sex you should get married precisely so you can have regular sex with the spouse that I’m saying you should refrain from having sex with so you can be and stay like me. Got it?

Ok. So yeah this argument has gotten a bit complicated hasn’t it? Hmmm. Right. Well, there is only one way to fix this—subject change time! Unmarried and widows, just sit there and try and make sense of all that while I turn my attention to the married folks. Cause in the next verse I’m gonna tell them that they shouldn’t’ separate from their spouse. Even though my wife and I are separated indefinitely…

Friends, if Scripture interprets Scripture, then the plain reading of this text (and also of 1 Cor 9:5) is clear. Paul was not married at the time he wrote this letter to the church at Corinth.

As you were.

I’ll admit that nuance is one of my favourite words. Some of my friends would undoubtedly tell you that it is one of my most over-used words. I’ll cop to that. In a contemporary world (and church) which encourages very binary and retrenched thinking, I think there is a real need for more nuance. But I also think that such nuance often tends only to possible if we’ve first unsettled the status quo a little. To put it another way, if we want to introduce nuance into the picture, we first need to create some room for it.

So, having attempted to do just that in my last post, in this one I want to offer some further nuance that I hope might be constructive in our (very often fraught) considerations of marriage, family and church.

A Tale of Two Comments

I received many different responses to my last post. Thank you! But I wanted to share two particular ones with you here.

This first was written by Australian Presbyterian minister, Vaughan Smith.

The second was tweeted by someone I don’t know. (Out of courtesy to them I have redacted their name/handle).

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A tale of two comments indeed! And yet, what struck me the most was the people behind the comments.

I was humbled that my words had been received by the author of that second comment as being encouraging, liberating, beautiful and biblical. I was so thankful that he felt better able to delight in his masculinity as a result.

But I was deeply troubled that my words had seemingly brought about just the opposite for the two men Vaughan wrote of. The last thing that I want any husband—let alone any widowed husband—to think is that I am critical of them for having been too devoted or too loving to their wife. That I think they treated her too well. That I resent them upholding, rejoicing in and testifying to the unique significance of their relationship, and wish their marriage looked less… well… marriagey.

My heart sunk. My mind raced. Is that what I had said?

Once I had calmed those two organs a little, I was able to recognise that no, that is not at all what I said.

I’m genuinely grieved that Vaughan and the two men he speaks of took my words to paint a ‘pitiful picture’ of marriage and to flatten out any distinctives of that magnificent relationship.

However, my conscience is clear. That is not what I think of marriage. And it is not what I said of marriage.

I am confident that any fair reading of my last post (let alone of it in the context of my broader work) would hear my repeated refrains about how much I think marriage matters; how unique and significant it is; how husbands are called to love their wives in wonderfully distinct and profound ways . At the risk of repeating myself:

“Yes, your marriage is vitally important, significant, unique and meaningful. To you has been given the very high calling of loving your wife as Christ loves the church. That is huge!”

So, no. I’m not sure how any fair reader could conclude, as Vaughan did, that I left:

“…husbands with a flat, empty vision for what their marriages should look like. She also leaves wives with a husband who is confused about how to treat them as distinct from other women they know.”

Falling Prey to False Dichotomies

Though, well, actually, maybe I do understand it.

You see, as readers we’re not always very good at recognising nuanced thought. To put it another way, we’re easy prey for false dichotomies.

So for those those who may have felt grieved by what they thought I was saying about their marriages; for those who fear I hold a pitifully empty view of love in marriage; for those who think I’m trying to flatten that covenant out and somehow make it less special and distinctive… let me try and make the nuance more explicit. Let me have a go at making the false dichotomies more visible. Quite literally. 👇

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I am firmly convinced that Christian husbands are called to love their wives in a very distinct, meaningful, profound and unique way (cf. all of Eph 5:22-33, plus the other passages I referenced). To love their wife in this way requires a husband to love them distinctly and differently to how they love anybody else. As I wrote:

“Scripture gives clear directives about how a husband is to treat his wife in ways which are different to how he treats his children, his parents, his neighbour, or any other person in his life.”

The uniqueness of marriage is a beautiful thing. I rejoice in the way God intends love to be distinctively and differently expressed in marriage.

But to love your spouse distinctly and differently does not mean you need to diminish your love for others. It’s a false dichotomy to think that loving your spouse requires you to love others less well than you love them.

Treating your spouse distinctly and differently does not entail you treating those who aren’t your spouse qualitatively worse. It’s a false dichotomy to think that treating your spouse well requires you to treat them “better” than you treat anyone and everyone else.

In Christ, the unique colour, texture, shape, even size of the love that sits in one relational dish miraculously counterbalances and complements the unique colour, texture, shape and size of love that sits in all the others. Each remains beautifully distinct and idiosyncratically expressive, without taking away from the other or seeing itself in competition with it.

In other words, Christian love isn’t a zero-sum game with one winner (i.e., your spouse) and a lot of comparative losers (everyone else).

Nuancing Love

And so, to those two men who wonderfully and faithfully fulfilled their promises to their wives and loved them in sickness and in health. Even to death…

Brothers, I honour you.

As a woman facing the very real possibility of growing old, getting sick and dying without a husband to love me as you did (and do) your wives, please hear me. There is absolutely no sense in which I wish you had recalibrated your relationship so you loved them less or treated them worse. Such a thing is unthinkable to me.

The truth I was seeking to suggest was not that a husband should love their wife less, but that loving them so well does not require him to treat others comparatively worse. Loving and serving your spouse in that distinctive and different way precious to your relationship with them, does not diminish your Spirit-empowered and Christ-focused ability to love and serve others in the distinctive and different ways precious to your relationship with them.

The objects of our gospel-compelled and enabled love are not in competition with each other.

Friends, I was going to continue this post with some thoughts on how we might nuance the relationship between household family and church family further. However, given the significance and poignancy of what I’ve tried to communicate above, I’ll leave this post here and continue my nuancing efforts in a second follow-up post soon.

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This image recently popped up on my socials. It was liked and shared by a bunch of my Christian friends. Some male married Christian friends particularly seemed to think it was great. A bunch of them gave it a hearty thumbs up. They offered it a resounding “amen”. They said that this, this right here, is what it means to be a true/good/loving Christian husband.

(NB. I’ve tried to verify the accuracy, source and authorship of this quote. However, I was only able to find other images just like this one. None of them provided any specific details about where it originally came from.)

And yet I gotta say that this image, or rather the quote in it, left me feeling a bit… awkward.

Now, let me say up front that I have no idea who Paul Washer is. Maybe I should, but I don’t. And so, what follows has absolutely nothing to do with Paul Washer personally (whoever he may be). I also realise there is likely to be some reading this right now who are already thinking “Ah, here we go. Another article attacking marriage”. No. What follows is the exact opposite of an attack on marriage.

You see, I think marriage matters. I think it matters a lot. And that’s why I think we need to have an awkward conversation about this quote, and other similar evangelical-vibey-type quotes about marriage.

So, strap yourselves in for a marital conversation as awkward as this AI generated wedding portrait.

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The Awkward Truth

Let’s recap.

“Treat your wife better than you treat anything or anyone. That’s your covenant with God. That’s your first ministry. To love her the way Christ loves the church is a high calling. If you fail at that, you’ve failed at everything.”

It sounds right doesn’t it? It sounds honourable. And godly. It sounds like it takes marriage seriously. That it puts marriage in its proper biblical light. It sounds like a quote which properly honours wives. It sounds like the sort of quote that evangelical Christians (especially married evangelical Christians) ought to get behind and give a hearty “Amen!” too.

But here’s the thing. I reckon the fourth sentence is the only part of that quote that is biblical. Which means I reckon all the rest of it is not just hyperbole or rhetorical flourish, but deeply unbiblical. And so I also reckon that all those unbiblical bits are detrimental to the institution of marriage, to husbands, to wives, to others they are in relationship with, and to the church.

Let me explain why I say that, one awkward truth at a time.

AWKWARD TRUTH #1: Husbands are not called to treat their wives better than anyone or anything.

Treat your wife better than you treat anything or anyone.

Scripture has a number of things to say about how a husband ought to treat his wife. He should fulfil his marital duty and yield his body to her (1 Cor 7:3-4). He should love his wife as he loves his own body and self (Eph 5:28, 33). He should not be harsh towards her (Col 3:19). He should treat her with respect, as a co-heir in Christ (1 Pet 3:7). And of course, he is to love her as Christ loved the church (Eph 5:25). So yes, the Bible has a lot to say about the distinctive ways a husband is to treat his wife.

But where exactly does the Bible say that a husband is to treat his wife better than he treats anyone else? #spoileralert: It doesn’t.

Scripture gives clear directives about how a husband is to treat his wife in ways which are different to how he treats his children, his parents, his neighbour, or any other person in his life. But it never once says that he is to treat her BETTER than he treats those other people. It never once gives him a “out” to not treat those other people with the same degree of diligence, love and care he offers to his wife. In fact, I’d suggest it says just the opposite.

Jesus did not say, “Love your spouse as yourself. Treat her better than anyone else in your life. Then see how much love you’ve got left in the tank to give to others. Just make sure they always take a backseat to your wife. Make sure you treat her better than you treat them”.

Yes, Christians husbands are to love their wives as they love themselves (Eph 5:33). But that’s because they are Christians. It’s because all Christians are called to love all others as they would love themselves… even as the expression of that love will look different in different relationships.

Nowhere does God exhort us to treat someone in our lives with a lesser degree of diligence, care, respect and honour just because we aren’t married to them. Nowhere does God instruct us to treat one image-bearer better than we treat another image-bearer because they wear our ring.

The exhortation for a husband to treat his wife better than anyone or anything is not a biblical exhortation.

AWKWARD TRUTH #2: In marriage, husbands covenant with their wife. Not with God.

That’s your covenant with God.

We’ve just seen that ‘treating your wife better than anyone or anything else’ is not what a husband promises to do when he gets married (Pssst: “Forsaking all others” is not a promise to treat others in your life with lesser care than you treat your wife. It’s a promise to not have sex with or marry anyone else since you are married to this woman.)

But more to the point, this second sentence of the quote gets both marriage and covenant wrong. You see, a husband’s marital covenant is not with God. It’s with his wife.

Absolutely, marriage is a covenant designed by God. It is a covenant entered into in the sight of God. It is a covenant blessed by God. It is a covenant which God will hold each party accountable to.

But when a man makes covenantal promises he is making them to the woman he is marrying. When a husband promises to love, comfort, honour and keep his wife in sickness and in health, till death do them part, he is promising to do that with and for and to that woman.

A wife is not a passive or invisible party in her own marital covenant. She is the recipient of her husband’s promises, just as he is the recipient of her’s. Marital promises are made before God. But they are not made to God.

The claim that a husband’s marital covenant is a matter between him and God is not a biblical claim.

AWKWARD TRUTH #3: Your wife is not your first ministry.

That’s your first ministry.

Look, let’s just be honest. Marriage (and family) as ‘first ministry’ is a contemporary evangelical shibboleth. If you need evidence of that, look no further than online bio after online bio of many pastors:

Husband to A. Father to B,C &D. Pastor at XYZ.

There is no ambiguity about the order or priority in this telling. If you’re a married Christian (whether in ministry leadership or not) then by evangelical default and decree, your spouse and your family is meant to be your first, primary and ultimate ministry. Everything else comes second to that. Nothing else is as important as that.

But is that actually what the Bible teaches?

A friend of mine has written a superb article exploring that exact question, with particular respect to those in ministry leadership. In The Pastor and the Evangelical Priority List, Simon Flinders (himself a husband, father and pastor) writes:

But these two responsibilities [family or congregation] are not easily reducible to a simplistic formula. Those of us who are both pastors and husbands/fathers turn to the Scriptures and find that both of these serious privileges have been laid on our shoulders. Meeting the demands of each is a complex exercise and a constant juggling act. Yet, as I suggest, nowhere do we find the Bible simplifying this complexity. Therefore I’m just not sure that the idea that the family is the pastor’s ‘first congregation’ is biblical. I think this is because God knows how complex life is: he knows that it would be simplistic (and, perhaps, counterproductive) to offer a simple formula for steering a course through the complexities… He hasn’t given us a clear priority list—as if one act of obedience is more important to him than another. So far be it from us to invent and broadcast a slogan that God has not deemed best for us.

I think Simon is spot on. ‘Marriage/family as first ministry’ is an unhelpful, unworkable and, most significantly, unbiblical oversimplification.

Furthermore, it’s a slogan which has manifested itself in our time and context largely because of the way the contemporary West has increasingly isolated, separated and nuclearised the “family” from both the church and the broader community. (I’ve written/spoken more about this here).

Now you might be unconvinced by both my and Simon’s arguments (though if you are feeling doubtful then I would ask you to make sure you’ve read his in full). But perhaps the Apostle Paul might be able to convince you?

Now THAT’S an awkward verse isn’t it?

The Apostle Paul quite literally says that in the now-but-not-yet those who have wives should live as if they do not have wives. How does that gel with the idea that your first, ultimate, top, and primary ministry is to your wife? How does that gel with all those Christian bios of men whose first order of business is making sure everyone knows they do indeed have a wife?

Look, there is no doubt about it. This is a complicated verse (indeed passage). While it’s difficult to know exactly what Paul means here (I’ve got some ideas, but that is for another time), we can confidently identify what he doesn’t mean. He doesn’t mean husbands should abandon their wives. He doesn’t mean husbands should pretend their wives don’t exist. He doesn’t mean husbands should neglect their wives. He doesn’t mean any of those things because he’s just said the opposite to all of them in the very same chapter.

But while we have outstanding questions about this verse’s full range of meaning and application, there is one thing we can know for sure about it. In 1 Corinthians 7:29 the Apostle Paul exhorts Christian husbands to not make their marriages all and everything. As he exhorts those who have a wife to live as if they do not have a wife, the very minimum of what Paul means is that Christian husbands are not to make their wives the very first and fullest and focused thing in their lives. That really does sit awkwardly today doesn’t it?

There is so much more to say about this verse’s meaning and application. Plus, we could even complicate things further by throwing in Jesus’ words (in Lk 14:28) that anyone not willing to hate his wife and children cannot be his disciple. Yikes! But this is not the time or the place for such detailed discussion. My basic point here is a simple one.

The assertion that a husband is to always make his wife his first ministry is not a biblical assertion.

AWESOME TRUTH #4: To be a husband is a high calling indeed.

To love her the way Christ loves the church is a high calling.

Yep. Exactly..

Look, I fixed it.

AWKWARD TRUTH #5a: The Christian life is not viewed through the lens of failure and success.

If you fail at that, you’ve failed at everything.

Husbands, you are a sinner. And so you’re going to stuff things up in your marriage. You’re going to stuff up loving your wife as Christ loved the church. You have already done that. You are going to do it again.

Of course, that reality check is not an excuse to stop applying yourself to the task of loving her as you should. It’s not a reason to decide to just throw in the towel because it’s all too hard. Far from it!

But husbands, know this:

The Christian life is not viewed through the lens of failure, but through the lens of forgiveness and faithfulness

The Christian life is not viewed through the lens of success, but through the lens of salvation and sanctification.

The prophet Isaiah said:

Even when you are “succeeding” as a husband, your best successes are still nothing more that filthy rags. Your greatest moral moments as a husband are still nothing more than polluted garments.

God doesn’t give husbands a “pass” or a “fail” mark in their marriages based on how many times they do or don’t stuff things up. Instead, he gives them forgiveness in Christ. He gives them fruitfulness in the Holy Spirit. He gives them his grace which:

Husbands, don’t focus on “failure”. Focus of forgiveness and faithfulness. Don’t focus on “success”. Focus on salvation and sanctification. You are God’s workmanship. You were created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand, so that you might walk in them. (Eph 2:10).

The characterisation of a husband as one who either fails or succeeds in his marriage is not a biblical characterisation.

AWKWARD TRUTH #5b: Stuffing up as a husband does not mean you’ve stuffed up everything.

If you fail at that, you’ve failed at everything.

Husbands, if and when you don’t bear husbandly fruit in your marriage—if and when you don’t love your wife as you ought—then repent and ask our gracious God to change you by his Spirit and according to his word.

But don’t believe any nonsense that in stuffing up as a husband you’ve stuffed up at and in everything.

I mean in one sense, yes, of course you’ve stuffed up at everything. That’s Isaiah’s point above, right? Nothing we sinners do could ever be good enough to make us righteous. We humans are really, really good at stuffing things up.

But don’t believe this nonsense that if you’re struggling with your sanctification as a husband, that the Spirit isn’t still bearing good fruit and good works in other parts of your life. Don’t for a moment believe this nonsense that if you’ve failed to love your wife as you should (whether that be on one or many occasions) then nothing else matters. Your godly obedience as a man is not completely summed up in and totally reliant upon your godly obedience as a husband.

Yes, your marriage is vitally important, significant, unique and meaningful. To you has been given the very high calling of loving your wife as Christ loves the church. That is huge! And yet, it is not the sum total of your life. Being a husband is not the whole of what it means for you to be a follower of Christ.

Your marriage is not the thing that matters so much that nothing else matters at all.

The pronouncement that a husband who fails to love his wife as Christ loved the church is a husband who has failed at everything is not a biblical pronouncement.

It’s Time to Have an Awkward Conversation

We evangelicals are long overdue to have an awkward conversation about marriage. It’s a conversation which goes something like this:

“Stop affirming unbiblical teachings and convictions about marriage. Stop liking, sharing and commending evan-jelly-cal nonsense about marriage. Stop giving pastors, leaders and authors free passes when they write and say foolish things about marriage. Stop being careless and uncritical just because you like the vibe of what they are saying about marriage.”

When an acquaintance of mine who shared the quote on social media received some push back, he responded by explaining why he likes it so much:

“It gets under my skin as a man and doesn’t let me off the hook with doing what I know I should… My greatest struggle is not loving my wife as Christ loved the church. I excuse my lack of sacrifice and selfishness in all kinds of sophisticated ways. I’m grateful for the kick in the pants.

I really value how this acquaintance of mine readily laments his struggle to love his wife as Christ loves the church. I really love that he wants to stop making excuses for his selfishness and his lack of love for her. I really appreciate the fact that he wants to change in this regard. I’m really thankful he wants to encourage and exhort other husbands to do the same. I really, really am.

But a kick in the pants is only as good as what it’s actually kicking with. And what this quote—and so many others like it—is kicking with is (largely) unbiblical nonsense.

This quote exhorts a Christian husband to ensure he treats one human person made in God’s image better than any and every other person made in God’s image. It encourages a Christian husband to see God, rather than his wife, as the recipient of his marital covenantal promises. It urges a Christian husband to make his wife his ultimate priority in life, even as Scripture calls that husband to live as if he doesn’t have a wife in the now-but-not-yet. It compels a Christian husband to look at his marriage through a lens of failure and success, rather than forgiveness, faithfulness, salvation and sanctification. It makes a Christian husband’s marriage into all and everything, rather than seeing it as one very good and meaningful relationship amongst many other very good and meaningful relationships.

Friends, we need to be able to look at contemporary Christian teachings, quotes, slogans and memes about marriage, we need to pay close attention to what they are saying about marriage, we need to compare them with what God’s word says about marriage, and then we need to awkwardly admit when what we are seeing doesn’t line up with what has been revealed to us about marriage.

It’s precisely because marriage matters so much that rooting out this kind of unbiblical teaching about marriage must also matter so much.